Springfield, MA
SPRINGFIELD — A year ago, Christine Jacobs was homeless, and her abuser was out of jail and on the streets searching for her.
Today, she lives in transitional housing provided by the YWCA of Western Massachusetts on its Clough Street campus, where she and her 5-year-old daughter are safe, and Jacobs is getting the counseling she needs to get permanent housing and back in school for vocational training.
“I’ve learned that everyone deserves to be treated with respect,” she told reporters Tuesday morning. “Not everyone treats people right. But that’s not my fault. I’m not responsible for how others treat me.”
She spoke Tuesday as U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, and others toured the YWCA campus and the 20-unit transitional housing building where Jacobs lives. Neal was there to announce that the YWCA programs that help Jacobs and others have received a $300,370 grant from the office of Violence Against Women in the U.S. Department of Justice.
The grant, and the office, were established by federal anti-domestic-violence legislation passed in 1994 and reauthorized in 2013.
Neal said the legislation has helped drag domestic violence out of “the shadows of American life.”
“Now it’s out in the open,” he said. “People are discussing the problem and steps are being taken.”
He thanked the YWCA for preparing a solid grant application, enabling him to help secure the money.
“The YWCA is a brand,” he said. “When you say that name, people recognize it and they want to help.”
The money will help the YWCA serve 110 women and children for 36 months, said YWCA of Western Massachusetts Executive Director Elizabeth G. Dineen.
Women and their children come to the supportive housing building from the YWCA’s emergency shelter in an adjacent building. There, they pay 30 percent of their income in rent and get not only a secure place to stay but counseling and training to get their lives back on track. Women and their families can stay in transitional housing for 18 to 24 months.
“Every Monday night, we have house meetings where I go over how to get subsidized housing, how to get training and look for a job,” said Doris Gonzalez, a support specialist at the housing unit.
Dineen said the women have their children with them. Most children go to Square One for preschool or to the Springfield public schools in the neighborhood.
Jacobs said a major benefit of YWCA transitional housing is that the building is secure, with multiple locking doors between the residents and the outside world.
The YWCA is the largest provider of services to battered women in the state. The YWCA of Western Massachusetts provides emergency shelter to more than 300 women and children each year, provides nonresidential counseling and treatment to 2,000 women and children a year and receives 10,000 calls to its crisis hotline each year.
The domestic violence/sexual assault hotline is 413-733-7100 or 800-796-8711. The Spanish-language number is 800-223-5001.
